Emptiness
by blinkblink
Summary: The old witch had always told him the magic would come when he needed it, and falling off a cliff certainly qualified. He just hadn't expected it to give him wings. Mild shonen-ai.


Disclaimer: I don't own Get Backers or the characters. Please don't sue me. I have almost as little money as them.

Schmendrick from Peter S. Beagle's _The Last Unicorn:_

I never knew I was so empty, to be so full.

__

Emptiness

As they plunged down past the dry cliff wall together, Ginji's arms wrapped tightly around his waist, head buried against Ban's shoulder, the old witch's words came back to him.

__

Your grandmother is the Witch-Queen, Ban. Magic is part of your blood, part of your soul. It will come when you need, but not when you call.

When he had asked her why, she had snorted and hit him with her stick and told him not to be cheeky. Well, dammit, now he needed the magic. He felt Ginji press harder into his shoulder, and something inside of him broke. _I don't give a damn if I end up splattered on the fucking ground, but Ginji's sure as hell not going to._ That was when the magic woke.

He felt it first as a slight itching on his back, like a rash your mother tells you not to scratch. But in a split second, it had catapulted up the pain scale into nerve-searing agony. Ban bit his lip hard, but when the wings ripped his back open he could no longer hold back the raw scream.

The wings. They were... well, they were magic, weren't they? He could feel them restructured his bones, becoming part of his back. They hurt much worse than anything physical had ever hurt Ban before, tearing through his flesh and trailing out behind him, two long black banners. He gritted his teeth and forced them out sideways until they nearly buckled. He let go then, let them whip backwards for a split second before bringing them down again in a huge sweep so that they brushed against his shoulders. And still, the two of them continued to plummet, the cliff bottom coming up quickly below. He had his voice under control now, but he could not hold in the small, catching gasps that came each time he beat the wings.

Ban tried to keep the beats as smooth as possible, while at the same time seeking desperately to even their bodies out in the sky, to stop them from plunging head-first into the ground. With each huge sweep they slowed slightly, although each time he could feel the wings straining hard, nearly snapping. Once, he held them out too long and the left one gave slightly, sending them careening towards the cliff wall. He had managed to pull them away, but not before that wing was slashed open by the rocky wall, leaving a long bloody mark painted across the rusty orange dirt.

It was only in the last twenty-five yards that Ban managed to slow them down enough for an approximation of a safe landing. It was painful. They hit the ground hard, Ginji's feet first, and promptly fell forwards, twisting together so that they rolled, two men and a lot of feathers.

They came to a stop fairly near to the cliff wall, Ban lying on top with Ginji partially below him. He sighed deeply and felt his body relax, felt his legs aching where they had scratched against hard rocks in the landing, felt the warm blood running down his back. And he felt Ginji move under him. That was the important part.

"Ban-chan?" Ginji's voice sounded... well, if not broken certainly cracked. Ban watched Ginji pull out from under his body, then slide away from the long wing which covered his waist, staring at it in shock. When he turned to look at Ban, now lying with half his face resting against the ground and only one eye opened, he had tears in his eyes. "Are you all right, Ban-chan? What... how...?" His eyes widened even more as he took in the blood-soaked back of Ban's shirt, and the splotches of it that were already beginning to drip off the torn wing to darken the dusty ground.

Slowly, uncertainly, when it became clear to him that Ban wasn't going to move, he slid his hand under Ban's face, gently, and pulled his upper body towards him so that it was resting in his lap, head cradled in his arms. "Ban-chan..."

"Gin...ji..." Vaguely, Ban noted that his back wasn't hurting very much any more. He was pretty certain that wasn't a good thing. Of course, the blackness that then swallowed him was also a pretty good clue.

* * *

Ban woke to find that his head was resting on something soft which wasn't Ginji. Ginji was warm and soft. This was just soft. He shifted slightly, or rather, tried to shift slightly. Nothing happened. He was lying on his stomach, one eye pressed against the soft thing. He opened both of them, and with one eye saw green, and with the other the cliff wall. His head was resting on Ginji's vest, then. The world was strangely bright. He lay, unmoving, for a moment before he realised he wasn't wearing his glasses. He must have lost them in the fall. He tracked his eyes down, and saw that the wings were still there, stretched out to their full length. Or at least, the one he could see was. It was also wrapped in what appeared to be his shirt-tails. His shoulder was bare, but he caught a hint of white bound across his back, around the wing. Another shirt ruined.

He tried again to shift, and this time managed to move his hand slightly, scooped up a bit of dusty dirt and gravel. He groaned.

"Ban-chan!"

A pair of legs, Ginji's, came into view, and he knelt down so that Ban could see all of him. He was smiling, but it did nothing to hide the worry evident in his eyes. "You woke up! I was afraid... well, it doesn't matter. How do you feel?"

"Fine." Not only was it a lie, it also didn't even make it past his lips. He coughed slightly, and tried again. His voice sounded quiet, and scratchy. Not the way he was used to sounding. Not the way he wanted to sound, in front of Ginji, when he already looked like crap. Ginji's eyebrows knitted together in worry.

"Are you thirsty, Ban-chan? I can get you some water, there's a stream over there. I'm pretty sure the water's okay to drink too. I mean, I drank some, and I'm okay."

"How long..." His tongue felt odd. In fact, it felt like wood, complete with splinters.

"We've been here a day, Ban-chan. We fell in yesterday afternoon. It's early afternoon now, around two. But I had some water yesterday, and this morning, and I still feel fine!" Ginji was obviously hinting at the water. Ban rolled his eyes slightly, but nodded, which came off more as him closing his eyes. Ginji seemed to get the message though, and disappeared.

Ban heard him walk for a while, at least twenty steps- a fairly long way to the river, then- before pausing, then returning. When he knelt down next to Ban again he had his hands cupped in front of him. Only a few drops of water had made it back from the river, and those few were mostly lost in the attempt to get them from Ginji's hands to Ban's mouth. He ended up with wet lips, but not much else. Ginji laughed distractedly and went off again.

They tried three times, none better than the first, before Ban opened his mouth to suggest something, anything, else. Ginji didn't give him time, though, and ran off again.

When he returned, he didn't speak, which gave Ban a feeling of apprehension. It multiplied tenfold when he bent down next to Ban with empty hands, but bulging cheeks.

"Ginji..."

Ginji made a sound low in his throat, but did not open his mouth. A slow blush had spread over his cheeks. He bent closer to Ban, and slipped a hand under his face. The hand was cool and wet, and felt like life's breath against his dry face, not that Ban would have admitted it. Ginji tilted Ban's face up slightly, and angled his own to match it, before leaning in deeply and pressing his lips against Ban's. While Ginji's lips were warm, the water was blissfully cool, and Ban drank it eagerly, pushing slightly against Ginji. When the water was gone, Ginji left quickly but returned just as soon, mouth again full with water.

Ban drank three times before he felt he couldn't drink anymore, despite Ginji pressing him to try, "You lost a lot of blood, Ban-chan! You need lots of fluids."

After the first two drinks though, Ban had begun to feel sick, and it had been all he could do to finish the third, forcing himself to with the same goal in mind as Ginji. Now he lay still again, hot sun beating down on him, thinking vaguely that with his luck, he would probably get sun stroke.

"Ban-chan?"

"Hm?" He turned his eye to Ginji, who had sat down next to him.

"Why..."

"Do I have wings?" He waited for Ginji to nod before continuing, slowly, "you know my grand-mother is the witch-queen, right?"

Ginji nodded, eyes wide and interested.

"She's the Queen for two reasons. One, she's really fucking powerful. But two, she knows a crapload of spells. She knows how to make magic do anything she wants, heal, wound, roll over backwards, you name it. Of those two things, she only passed on one to me." At least now that he had drunk, his throat was working properly.

"The powerful magic?"

"Yeah. It's partially a blood thing, which is why I have it, but partially a personal thing, which is why my parents don't really. And it brings along its own curses, like the _jagan_. I get it because I have the magic to support it."

Ginji looked thoughtful, "You mean I could have the _jagan_?"

"You could, I guess, through some freak mutation, but you wouldn't be able to use it, 'cause you've got no magic to run it on. It's like you'd have a car, but no gas for it. I'm in the opposite situation. I've got plenty of gas, but no car."

"Huh?"

"I have lots of magic, but no way to control it, to make it do what I want to. The old witch wouldn't teach me, said I was strong enough already and I was way too cocky to be trained to rule the world. Hah." He smiled, and it wasn't altogether unkindly. "Anyway, I can only use the magic when I really, really need it." _Which_, Ban translated in his mind, _somehow always ends up being when you're in trouble, but never when I am._

"Why? If you don't have the spells to make it do what you want, how can you get it to help you, even when you really need it..."

"A long time ago, there weren't any spells. Everything was focus. Then, people realized they couldn't harness a lot of their magic, and invented spells. Spells are like... a way to focus magic, without having to use _actual_ focus; you just use them instead. Say I wanted to use magic to pick up that rock," he indicated a well-sized rock on the edge of his peripheral vision, "if I didn't have a spell, I'd have to concentrate really, _really_ hard on doing it. Most likely, there's no way I could concentrate hard enough. The magic wouldn't know what I wanted it to do. That's why you have spells. They concentrate the magic, tell it where to focus, what you want it to do."

"But when you need it..."

"When I need it badly enough, it's in situations where it's obvious what I need it to do. We both fall off a cliff. We're hurtling towards the ground at a million miles a second. It's pretty obvious to the magic what needs to happen, plus I'm concentrating, more than I'd ever be able to on something not life-threatening, on not wanting to go splat. So, the magic does something."

"It gave you wings."

"Yeah. Although, right now, I'm thinking a jet-pack would have been less painful." He smiled at Ginji, and then cursed himself when Ginji's face fell and his eyes flitted to Ban's torn, bloody back. "You should try to get out of here. It's going to take a while, and you might as well get started sooner than later."

Ginji froze, and stared at Ban for a minute, before shaking his head vigorously. "I'm not leaving Ban-chan here."

"Ginji..."

"No!"

"I'm not going to be able to go anywhere for a while, and we don't have any food." It was at this point that Ban realised the situation was not good. In fact, it was quite possibly not survivable. "Ginji, it's more important that one of us-"

"No! We're the Get Backers! The Get Backer_s_", he emphasized the "s" strongly. "We don't give up, and we _don't_ abandon each other."

Ban sighed quietly, and said, even more quietly, "Ginji, I can't move."

"What!" He dropped down so that his face was closer to Ban's, "What happened, when did-"

"Ginji! Listen. Growing wings takes a lot of magic. A _lot_. More than I have to spare. The _jagan_, even when I'm not using it, eats up a fair bit, and right now all my magic, and a lot of my energy, is going towards feeding it. I don't have the energy to move. And it's not going to be coming back any time soon." _Or any time at all, from the looks of things._

"Ban-chan..."

"So, you should just go. Go, and find help and get food and stuff, and then you can come back and help me out of this hole, okay?" He smiled. Because, dammit, he was Midou Ban, and if there was one thing he was good at in life, it was being perpetually confident. Even when he wasn't.

"No." Ginji's voice was almost less than a whisper, more of a breath. It was something he said with his soul, not his voice. "I won't leave you here to die, Ban-chan."

"Ginji, that's not it..." _But that's it exactly_.

"That's it exactly!" Ginji echoed Ban's thoughts. "You can't trick me, Ban-chan. Not now, not like this. If I leave, when I get back-"

"I'll still be here."

"Yes, you will be!" The harshness of Ginji's voice startled Ban, and he looked into his eyes and was surprised to see real anger there. "Yes, Ban-chan, your body will be here, and it will be empty, and _you_ will be gone."

Ban opened his mouth to speak, but he wasn't given the chance. "Don't say 'Ginji', and look at me like you know better, because I know you do, you don't need to prove it. And I don't care if I'm an idiot, anyway. But I'm not leaving. I'm staying right here. With _Ban-_chan!"

"Ginji-"

"Ah!"

"Ginji, it's alright. If you feel so strongly about it, then I guess you can stay." _Because I could never deny you anything. Somehow, even though I'm the "leader", I'm more your follower than Kazuki or Shido ever was._

"Ban-chan, how could you think I wouldn't?" He rested a soft hand on Ban's, stared steadily into his eyes.

After a moment, Ban closed his eyes. Before he fell asleep, he felt Ginji brushing his bangs out of his face.

* * *

Ban was awoken by a light shower of something cold on his head and back. He opened his eyes and, finding nothing moving between him and the cliff wall, tried to prop himself up to turn to face the other direction. It took almost more energy than he had, and he ended up dropping himself harshly, wincing when his face landed hard on Ginji's vest, resting on several very hard rocks. But facing away from the cliff allowed him to see the river, and Ginji standing in it, the water coming up to his knees. On the other side of the river was a large forest of mostly pine trees, dark and foreboding even in the morning sun.

The blond Get Backer was bent over in the river, grabbing at something. He caught it and threw it towards the shore. It sparkled as it flew through the air, and Ban recognized it as a fish. It landed on a pile of a few others, and as he watched several more joined it. It didn't take much of Ban's expansive intellect to figure that Ginji must have electrocuted the fish in one big burst, big enough to land water on him. He noticed that there was already a small fire burning fairly near to the water, and a stack of branches sitting next to it.

When he had finished rounding up the fish from the surface of the water, Ginji waded out and pulled on his socks and shoes. He glanced over at Ban, and his face lightened visibly. "Ban-chan! You're awake!" He ran over, narrowly missing the fish pile. "I got breakfast!"

"What time is it?"

Ginji glanced at his watch. "Almost ten. You slept all evening, and all night. I figured you should probably eat something today, and then I saw shiny things in the water and bam, instant breakfast for the Get Backers!"

"_Shit_!" The Get Backers, who were supposed to get back things, who were out here getting back something.

"Ban-chan? What's wrong?" Ginji dropped to his hands and knees anxiously.

"Ginji, where's the box?"

"What?"

"The box, the one we're supposed to be getting back! It got knocked over the cliff before us." Ban scanned the nearby area, didn't see anything resembling the small, fist-sized box which they had been sent to retrieve.

"Oh, that. I found it on the ground yesterday and put it in my pocket. It seems fine. Here." Ginji pulled out the small box, a black jewellery box with a tight spring and a small golden lock on the opening side. "What do you think's inside, Ban-chan?"

"Who cares. We're getting paid not to open it. Although, at this rate, it doesn't much matter."

"Ban-chan! We _are _going to complete this assignment! What about our hundred percent success rate?"

Ban opened his mouth, and then shut it again, unwilling to burden Ginji, who was already shouldering more problems than he ought to, with his pessimism. "What about breakfast?"

Ginji smiled brightly and slipped the box back into his pocket before running back to the fire. He returned shortly with several cooked fish speared on pieces of wood. He stuck all but one into the ground next to Ban, holding the last one in his hand. He then knelt down next to Ban, who was still lying on his stomach, and apparently realized that Ban's was not an ideal position for eating.

"Ban-chan, how long will the wings stay? It would be a lot easier if you could turn over." He put the stick in his mouth, tilting his head slightly to the side so that the fish would not slide off it, and began pulling Ban up towards him.

"They'll stay until I get rid of them. Right now, they're solid matter. They're attached to the bones in my back, and they'll stay there until I have the magic to banish them." He held himself stiffly while Ginji arranged him so that one side was leaning again Ginji's leg, the other one up in the air, turning him as far sideways as was possible without bending the downward wing the wrong way. Ginji slipped an arm around Ban's back, holding him secure, and Ban relaxed slightly, allowed his body to mould into its new position.

Ginji pulled the stick out of his mouth and held it to Ban's. The first fish was consumed with alacrity, as were the next three. He managed to finish a fifth, pausing in between, but refused the next, leaning forwards towards Ginji's chest and away from the fish.

"Ban-chan..." Ginji's voice was soft and distressed

Ban purposely did not look at him. He didn't need to see him to know exactly what expression was currently etched on his partner's face. "Go have something to eat."

For a minute neither of them moved, Ban resting quietly in Ginji's arms, Ginji holding him loosely, uncertainty flickering across his face. Finally, he shrugged away from Ban, lowering him gently to the ground, and walked back to the fire, where he began to eat alone. When he was done, he remained there, throwing pebbles into the river one by one. Ban watched him with unwavering eyes, focused on his straight back. It was a strong back, and one that he had fought against more times than he could count. Vaguely, he tried to remember the last time he had, wondered if it would truly be the last. _Stop it. Until Ginji lea- as long as Ginji is here, there's no way you're gonna abandon him. So stop being so damn morbid!_ He blinked, and tried in vain to block out the quiet little voice in the back of his mind which told him that Ginji would never leave, and that he would abandon him in the end. _I will not. I would never abandon him._ Just like you'd never abandon Yamato, said the voice. "I won't."

"Won't what, Ban-chan?"

Ban broke out of his thoughts to notice that Ginji had stopped throwing rocks and had drifted back over. "Hm? Oh, won't lose the money from this job." Ban tried his very hardest to sound sincere. He wasn't sure if Ginji bought it, or if he was faking to reassure him. It would have been easier to think that Ginji was too dumb for that, but it would be a lie. Ginji was one of the smartest people he knew, at least when it came to people. Refusing to recognise that would not only be an injustice, it would be a big mistake.

"Ban-chan, I was thinking, maybe we should start trying to get out of here. I know the cliff is too steep to climb here, but if we went along a bit, maybe we could find a place that was less..."

"And what about Hishiki? He's probably still up there, waiting for us to crawl back up so he can crush us."

"He probably thinks we're dead. I know I shocked him enough to at least stun him. He wouldn't have seen you... the wings..."

"You didn't shock enough to stun me, Ginji, and I was in between."

"Only part of the charge went through you, Ban-chan, as little as I could manage. The rest of it went through the air. Altogether, if it didn't knock him out it would have stunned him. Really, Ban-chan. I know." Whether the little flicker of blue energy which surrounded his fists momentarily was to assert Ginji's understanding of his element, or whether it indicated a flicker in temper, Ban wasn't entirely sure. "We could always hike through the forest instead..." Ginji gave a glance towards the forest on the other side of the river. It was made up mainly of fir trees which blocked out all the light, painting the forest in dark, shadowy colours.

"No. Without a map that would be ... stupid." He cut himself off before he could say suicidal, and realized that it was perhaps the first time he had censored himself for Ginij's benefit.

"So we'll climb the cliff! We should start now. I'll just go have a drink. Oh, do you want one, Ban-chan?"

Ban opened his mouth to refuse, then realized that a) he should try to hydrate himself as much as possible before climbing up a cliff in the sun even if he wasn't the one who would be climbing and that b) he was very thirsty. These thoughts flitted through his mind in a second as he watched Ginji watching him, and then he nodded, "Yeah" and closed his eyes, turning his face in slightly towards the ground in an attempt to appear unflustered.

Ginji left and returned quickly, mouth full of water again. Ban forced himself to drink five times, spilling water down his cheeks when he found himself unable to swallow all of the fifth and turning away in embarrassment to press his face into the ground. He missed the vest and rubbed his face into the dirt instead, the dust immediately sticking to his wet face. Ginji slipped his fingers under Ban's face gently and wiped the dirt off with the hem of his shirt, leaving a long brown streak there. Ban mumbled his thanks, forcing his hand up to rest his face on. Ginji returned to the river and drank his fill of the water.

When he returned, he pulled his vest out from under Ban's head and slipped it on, patting the pockets down.

"I thought we could walk along the river a bit and see if the wall gets any less steep?" Ginji always deferred to his judgement. Even in _Mugenjou_ where he had been master, he had looked to Ban to make decisions.

"Fine." Ban pushed himself up on his forearms. A full stomach was helping a little with the magic drain. Now that he'd had some food, things were looking better. Well, things not involving the giant cliff they now had to scale.

Ginji knelt down beside him and pulled him up into a sitting position, Ban trying his hardest to do most of the work himself. When that was accomplished, Ginji squatted down on his haunches in front of Ban and looked back over his shoulder, slightly unsure. Ban put a hand on each of his shoulders and hauled himself forwards onto Ginji's back, letting his legs dangle just slightly forwards of Ginji's. He wrapped his arms around the neck in front of him and closed his eyes to fight off the nausea that enveloped him when Ginji stood in an awkward, over-balanced motion. The great wings swept up off the ground, raising clouds of dust; they settled to curve around Ginji's shoulders, the tops of them crossing in a gentle slope just above his waist. The ends trailed half a foot off the ground, a few black feathers floating gently down to rest in the dust.

"Um, Ban-chan, you still can't get rid of the wings, I suppose?" Ginji sounded slightly worried. Of course, that was normal operating procedure for Ginji. It was only when he wasn't either slightly worried or very happy that Ban became concerned.

"No." The reply was short, harsh. Ban was out of breath, and he wasn't doing any work. It made him feel helpless, and that was irritating. Also, something felt strange, and it wasn't coming from him. He pushed that thought aside and asked a question, hoping to make up for his sharp tongue, "Why?" Not much better.

"Well, it's just, I'm not going to be able to climb the cliff very well if they're going to be hanging here in front of me." Ginji, who had wrapped both arms around his back under Ban to hold him up, bumped his elbow gently against one.

"We'll cross that bridge when we get there. For now, let's look for a way up the cliff." He could, presumably, hold the wings out behind him or to the side as he would if he were flying, but that would involve pulling them into a position other than the one they had been resting in for the past two days, and probably tearing up his back again. An option to be avoided as long as possible.

They walked a fair way along the river bank, at least a mile, Ban estimated, and found no place which was sloped considerably more gently than any other. Some offered more obvious handholds, but all were at least on a 75 degree incline, if not steeper. Ban, tired at staring at an unchanging landscape, rested his head against Ginji's shoulder and after a while closed his eyes. Carrying Ban's weight on his back caused Ginji to walk in a more deliberate, swaying action, almost like a boat's. It was a soothing rhythm, accompanied by the soft beat of Ginji's heart, faster than his own but still fairly slow for the work he was doing. Ginji's back was warm under him, and slowly Ban found his thoughts drifting away from the current situation, and then away from consciousness.

* * *

"Ban-chan? Ban-chan? Ban-chan?"

Ban woke to find it a little cooler and dimmer than it had been when he had gone to sleep, and to find that his ride was nearly bucking. He lifted his head up off Ginji's shoulder and looked at him hazily. "Mmph?" It was the distinct sound of someone forced to speak immediately upon waking.

"Oh, you were sleeping. I thought you had been breathing slower for a while. But then you didn't wake up when I called..."

Ban felt Ginji's back and shoulders relax slightly and realized that he had been worried. "What is it?" He forced himself to speak clearly, authoritatively, as he usually did.

"I thought maybe we should go back and try the best place we saw. We've been walking for more than an hour and I don't see any change soon. Besides, once we get up the cliff we're going to have to walk all the way back to the car."

The car. Ban's beloved beetle. They had left it parked in the middle of the road when they jumped out to fight Hishiki, the Undead. Presumably it was still there, unless it had been towed, unlikely on such a remote road.

"Yeah, okay. You feel up to it?"

"Un!" Ginji gave a little jump which pushed Ban higher on his back to emphasize his energy.

"Okay then, let's go. You have everything, right? I don't want to have to come back here." Ban tried to sound funny. It came out badly though, and put him in mind of the dirt where they had landed, turned to bloody mud. He didn't have to see Ginji's face to know his partner was thinking the same thoughts. _Good work, Midou. Just had to go open that big mouth of yours again, didn't you?_ He sighed and tapped Ginji's shoulder with his elbow. "C'mon, get a move on. We don't want to be climbing in the dark." We. That was a joke. Him and his almighty attitude. That was a joke. The _jagan_, that was a joke. Midou Ban. He was the biggest joke of all. The only thing in his entire life that wasn't, the only thing that had never come back to bite him in the ass, the only thing he had never regretted and never hated was Ginji. Ginji, who right now he was using as his pack animal. God, he was pathetic.

"Ban-chan, you okay?"

"Yeah. Fine." Ban wanted to crawl under a rock and die. Hell, he wanted to take the goddamn rock and beat himself to death with it. But then Ginji would be sad. And that right there was the crux of his life. Couldn't live, because really, he didn't deserve to live. Couldn't die, because Ginji didn't deserve the pain his death would cause. Sometimes he wondered if his life was all one big _jagan_ inspired nightmare– that he had never stopped looking at his grandmother's bright blue snake eyes– and that right now the old witch was laughing at him. Hell, even if this wasn't a dream she was probably still laughing at him.

He was shaken out of his morbid thoughts by a stop in movement, and focused his eyes to find that they were standing facing the cliff at a portion that was slightly less steep than the others and seemed to offer hand-holds. Ginji turned his head to meet Ban's eyes, the tips of their noses bare hair-widths apart. Ginji's brown eyes, almost as bright as Ban's own cursed ones, held all the excitement they always did; it was tempered slightly by caution and, Ban sensed more than saw, worry. He smiled, and it almost fooled Ban. Almost.

"Ban-chan, can you do something with the wings now?"

Like burn them. Ban wished. He inhaled deeply, shut his eyes and concentrated. The muscles for the wings had come with them and were magic. They didn't run off of Ban's energy but rather his magic. So, even when he could hardly make a fist the wings would still work, provided there was the magic for them. Slowly they pulled out and away from Ginji and then, more shakily, up and backwards so that they were folded awkwardly behind him. His back didn't hurt as much as he had thought it would, which was a surprising piece of luck.

The climb was slow and, frankly, boring. Ban was sure that it would have been more exciting if he had been doing some work instead of bouncing along on Ginji's back like a sailor's canvas bag. There were a few seconds of adrenaline-rush heart-pounding moments when Ginji slipped or one of his holds gave out and they slipped back a few body-lengths before he got a grip again, but the fear passed quickly. Although

after the third one, when they had been at least thirty feet up the cliff, Ban had surreptitiously wrapped his arms around under Ginji's arms instead of his neck, just in case they really did fall and had to make a repeat of their original entrance.

The clouds which had begun to appear while Ban had been sleeping on Ginji's back began to form in earnest, now darkening the sky considerably. Ban estimated there were still a few good hours until dusk, but how long it would be until rain fell was a different question. Rain could quite possibly turn the cliff into a giant mud slide. He tightened his grip around Ginji slightly. He could hardly urge him to go faster, Ginji's heart was already beating quick as a bird's in his chest. Ban could feel it against his own.

"Do you think it will rain, Ban-chan?" Sometimes, Ban wondered if Ginji could read minds, although he was fairly certain Ginji wondered the same about him more frequently. His voice was catching slightly now, breath coming harder. They were almost half way up the cliff after perhaps an hour of climbing.

"Maybe. Hopefully not for a while."

Ginji took the hint anyway and redoubled his efforts, stopping only for a moment to boost Ban higher on his back. Ban's knee brushed against Ginji's vest, and whatever the strange feeling that he had pushed to the back of his mind earlier reasserted itself with more strength. Now that he had little else to think about he pulled it out and examined it. It was sharp-edged, although there was a hint of something warmer inside. Ban closed his eyes and focused harder on it, body relaxing slightly. The feeling, whatever it was, began to slip away then and Ban opened his eyes, keeping them narrowed in confusion.

"You're not asleep, are you, Ban-chan?" There was a tone of concern in Ginji's voice.

"Nah. Who could sleep in a situation like this." His mind quickly evaluating this statement and his current place on Ginji's back, he quickly added, "Bumping all over the place." Somehow, that didn't really make it much better. He wondered if Ginji was blushing. He wondered if Ginji even had any idea of the thoughts that had just flickered through his mind. He chased them away, as one would rats with a broom. He wished he wasn't blushing, and rebuked himself firmly until the heat on his cheeks faded away.

When he had finished turning his thoughts to completely different matters, he noticed that they were higher on the cliff, easily past half-way up, he thought. He also noticed that the clouds were looking darker, but there wasn't much to be done about that.

They would be at the top soon. Ban entertained himself by trying to recite as many poems in German as he could remember, moving on to English ones when he ran out. Now that Ginji had gotten the hang of climbing this cliff they were slipping less, and only had one serious set-back. When they had recovered from it, Ban looked back over his shoulder on a whim and noticed the grey curtain which now covered the hill behind them. It was raining there, and judging by the way his hair kept blowing forward into his eyes, the wind was moving the clouds in their direction.

But, they were almost there. Perhaps twelve feet left. Then ten. Then six. They would be able to get up, and somehow Ban would fit himself into the car and drive them back and they would eat until he had the energy to get rid of these damned wings and– oh _shit_.

Just as Ginji was pulling them both up over the top of the cliff, Hishiki's patent leather shoes appeared directly in front of them. Both Ginji and Ban craned their heads up to look the Undead in the eyes, his sunglasses conspicuously absent. He stared at them for nearly a minute straight, none of the three moving. This was a nightmare, and Ban had caused enough that he damn well knew what qualified. For that moment, time stood still, even the wind disappearing. And then, as the sky opened and let the rain pour down, everything happened at once.

Hishiki, obviously caught completely unawares by the appearance of his quarries, kicked out hard at Ginji. Ginji dodged to the side, Ban pressing his head down tightly against Ginji's shoulder. Ginji's handhold, severely reduced by his abrupt shift in weight, disintegrated into mud under the pelting rain. And they both began to fall. Again.

"_Dammit!_" As Ginji's full weight slammed down against Ban's arms he spread the wings out again, hoping to catch an air current before they fell too far to get back up. It quickly became apparent that, regardless of whether there were currents or not, Ban sure as hell didn't know how to use them. And he was _tired_.

"Ban-chan!" Ginji was slipping in his grip, less secure than the last time. Ban's knee bumped against his leg again, and the feeling resurfaced. And then, everything made sense.

"Ginji! The box, get the box out and give it to me!" He didn't need to shout, as Ginji's ear was right next to his mouth, but that wasn't high on his list of considerations. Ginji's hand scrambled in his pocket and pulled the black velvet box out, handing it up to Ban. The minute Ban took hold of it, the lock gave a small _click_ and sprung open. He didn't see what was inside the box, something very bright registered vaguely in his mind, but he sure as hell felt it.

It was like... well, Ban had never been to the desert, but if he had, and if he had been left to wander around in it for days without anything and then suddenly given a drink of cold water, _that_ was what it felt like, except it was warm. It was, in fact, remarkably like the feeling he had had when Ginji had pulled their mouths together for the first time, in the second before the water came. Whatever it was, it spread quickly through him like a sudden wave of heat and focused in his back. The wings, which had up to then felt like a dead weight, suddenly weren't heavy at all, but beat easily and unwaveringly, and Ban realized this was what it was to harness magic. The wings knew what they were doing, and found the currents on their own, bringing him and Ginji up quickly so that in seconds they were above the level of the road. He swept low over it in a strafing run, except without guns, and then realized he had something better. He had Ginji.

Ginji clearly realized this at the same time, and as they came up on Hishiki he pushed slightly against Ban's arms. Ban beat the wings hard, right before they would have rammed into Hishiki, driving them backwards, and dropped Ginji. The wings, in their element now, brought him back into the air to circle above as Ginji, who was soaked to the skin and surrounded by electricity-conducting water, began to crackle. The air around him began to glow with his power, and although Hishiki cracked his knuckles, Ban saw him lean backwards slightly. Ginji was _angry_.

"You pushed the box of the cliff. You pushed me off the cliff. You pushed _Ban-chan_ off the cliff." His tone made it clear that the last offence was so great that the previous two were almost insignificant compared to it. "Why shouldn't I push _you_ off the cliff?" Ginji leaped forwards- away from the cliff- and brought his glowing fist around. Hishiki made an attempt to block which Ginji neatly avoided and then brought his blow home, knocking the Undead over and out in one shot. He stood, panting and nearly doubled over, as the rain fell about him. Slowly the current shrunk until it was no longer there. He continued to watch his unmoving opponent for the better part of a minute before he was certain, and then immediately turned to look for Ban.

Ban forced the wings to set him down a few feet in from the edge of the cliff. They had wanted to fly more, all the more strongly for knowing that now they needed to go. As soon as his toes touched the ground he felt them pulling away from him, feathers scattering in the wind, bone sliding slickly out of his back and turning to dust. The skin and muscles in his back knit back together, leaving almost not mark. It was overwhelming, and Ban fell to his hands and knees, breathing hard. He tried to put the thought out of his mind, but really it had felt very much like when Akabane had pulled his Bloody Sword out of his back, only warmer. Everything about magic was warm.

But Ginji was warmer. He knew, because Ginji was holding him close now, and his face was buried in Ginji's shoulder just under the vest so that his nose was out of the rain. He sighed and let himself relax, slip quietly into Ginji's embrace. Ginji was silent now, and Ban was glad, not because he disliked Ginji talking, but because it meant Ginji wasn't anxious and he could just enjoy the warmth and not have to worry about reassurances.

Ban had no idea how long they sat together in the mud, but eventually Ginji pulled away gently. "We should go, Ban-chan. Hishiki will wake up soon." Ginji stood, then leaned over and offered a hand to Ban. He took it and was pulled up, feet slipping slightly in a puddle. The memory of the wings sliding out of his back like a knife would not leave him, played over and over, so that he found himself arching his back slightly every few seconds. It made him feel sick, and he found it hard to concentrate on walking. Ginji pulled Ban's arm over his shoulder and began leading them towards the car. Perhaps miraculously, they were only some thirty yards from it.

"Ban-chan? What's in the box?"

Ban realised he still held the box in the same hand Ginji had pressed it into and looked down at it. The lid was still open. Inside was a golden ring, with a diamond set into it. He raised the box to eye-level and stared at it. There was nothing strange about it now, he felt no magic in it.

"It's just a ring? But, before, I saw something really ... shiny." Ginji was confused

"That was the magic."

"It came from the ring?"

"No." The ring was just an old wedding ring stolen by a jealous ex-wife. "There's nothing special about it."

"Then, the box?"

"No, there's nothing special about it either." Ban flipped the lid shut, heard the lock click, and tucked it into his pocket.

"But, then where-"

"Do you remember me telling you that I use magic with the _jagan_?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I make that magic. Partially it's my blood that allows that, but it's also because I have a stronger will than most people. Only people with very strong minds, and strong desires, can create or call magic."

"Un. Ban-chan is very strong."

"Yeah. In fact, there's only one person in the world who's got a stronger mind and desires than me."

"Your grandmother?"

"No." The old witch had a strong mind, that was for sure, but she hadn't had any wishes for a long time. Longer than Ban could imagine.

"Then wh-"

"When people use magic, if you know them, then to you it feels a lot like them. The magic in that box felt like you, Ginji." He looked over at Ginji, who blinked and then turned his head to stare at Ban.

"I can't use magic!"

"No, you can't. But you can call it, and since I do know how, I can use it."

Ginji still looked confused.

"When we were down there, what was the one thing you were really worried about, the one thing you really wanted."

"I was worried about you, Ban-chan. I wanted you to get better."

"Right. And the whole time you were carrying around that box, and since the magic couldn't concentrate in _you_ 'cause you have no ability to use it, it concentrated in there instead."

They had reached the car now. Ban pulled away from Ginji and opened the door, slid himself in but left the door open. He fumbled around in the dashboard compartment until he found a pen and paper, then scribbled something on it. "Here, go put this in Hishiki's pocket."

"What is it?" Ginji leant into the car so as not to read the paper without getting it wet.

__

Just one minute. Were you seeing a dream?

Ginji pocketed it with a slight frown. "But, you didn't use _jagan_."

"No, but he doesn't know that. This way, he won't be running around talking about the wings."

"You're so smart, Ban-chan!" Cheered up instantly, Ginji disappeared out into the rain.

Ban pulled the door shut and relaxed back into the seat that was so used to him it was moulded to fit his body. He automatically pushed a finger up the bridge of his nose, and remembered that he had lose his glasses in the fall. The feeling of the wings was slowly fading now, and he was feeling better for it. He was grateful, if you could be grateful to magic, for the wings, but he didn't miss them. The thought that many people would give an eye to be able to have wings made him snort, and he sat in the car laughing quietly to himself until Ginji returned.

"What's funny, Ban-chan?"

"Nothing. Did you leave the note?"

"Yep. Hishiki was still out, but we should probably go. Are you okay to drive?"

"Yeah, fine."

"Well, now you're back to having gas, right, Ban-chan?"

"Huh?" It took Ban a full minute to remember how he had explained magic to Ginij. "Oh, yeah. I'm back on full."

He put the car in gear and pulled it back onto the road, heading back in the direction they had come from originally, two days ago. It seemed like they had spent years down by the river.

"Ban-chan?"

"Hm?" He didn't take his eyes off the road.

"I found this earlier, and I was wondering... um... is it okay if..." Ginji stuttered off into silence. Ban peered forward on the road to make sure no collisions were imminent before glancing over at Ginji.

"What?"

"Is it okay if I keep this?" Ginji pulled a hand out of his pocket, the one he had kept the box in. Held gently between his fingers was one dark feather, just slightly damp.

Ban caught himself staring at it and tore his gaze away to focus on the road again. "Yeah, Ginji. It's okay." He caught Ginji's wide grin and started to smile himself. Behind them, the sun came out from behind a cloud and left a shimmering rainbow behind. _Everything's okay, now._

__

Fin


End file.
